Sac Town Blues

Just this last December my guitarist Gabe Searles and I began hosting an weekly open mic. The venue is right in the heart of Old Folsom on Sutter Street, a place named Lock Down Brewery. We open the floor for to all musicians who are willing to share their music with us. We also welcome musicians and singer who may just want to jam with other players. Sign ups begin at 7pm and the fun goes until 10pm or as long as you want to play.

Here is how it all started:
We got connected with the owner one evening while playing music out on Sutter Street for tips. “Busking” as we call it. A man with a woman on his arm stopped for a minute to listen as they were casually passing by. When the song was over he kindly tossed a couple dollars in the open box we had laid out and he said “You know, we can hear you guys from the upstairs bar across the street. Your really good! You should bring your gear up there and play for us for a couple hours.” Needless to say, we went.
When we got up to the brewery the scene was live and happy. People were cheering as we set up for the music that would keep the party going indefinitely. They put a pint of “the common” in our hands as we fired up that amps and took to what we do best.
A couple months later we were asked back to play for an evening, and that’s when the owner talked with us about his open mic idea. We loved the idea of a steady gig and this would give us a chance to promote something concrete while meeting a good number of musicians. So that’s it, all I have to say for now. See you on Wednesday!

Last Saturday afternoon Gabriel Searles and I took to Sutter street at 5pm with strict orders. Our mission was to fill Old Town Folsom with the sound of 1930′s-50″s blues music. The temperature was 100 degrees, the spot we had was directly in the sun, and the listeners were few and far between. Still we played.

Interestingly enough for the first hour and a half the only people that threw us any money were people we new from church. Kinda demoralizing, but we were still thankful. We wiped the sweat from our brows after every song and sometimes during. Every now and again we would get a family or two to stop, but they were just as hot as we were, so they would quickly move along to the comfort of an air-conditioned shop. We were baking!

Once 7:30 hit, the sun had moved out of site. Sweet relief! We continued to play until just before 9pm and we were certainly happy to do so now that we were more comfortable. We realized that most of the town had waited to come out until heat had subsided. They were all coming out to Second Saturdays and ready to listen to music and share cocktails, but it was too late. We had been frying for three and a half hours and we had nothing left to give.

One of the pictures taken from the gig is Gabe’s son holding our tips sign. It reads “Friend Killed by Ninjas, Need Money for Karate Lessons”. The sign gets us a couple comedy dollars, and hey, we’ll take em!
All in all it was a decent gig where we learned one important lesson. Folsom’s Second Saturday is better worked after 7:30pm. Write that down!

On Wednesday July 20th, I will be playing at the Owl Club in Roseville as the featured artist of the evening. Hosted by Angela Davise (a wonderful guitarist and singer) I will be playing a collection of blues, folk, and classic rock music with a hand full of talented musicians. Also, I will be playing about a 45 minute set on my own. You may be asking yourself “How is that possible with just a harmonica?” Well over the past year I have been honing my skills in the area of beat boxing and using a loop station. Once I lay down the beat, I begin to layer harmonica licks over one at time until the room is filled with the presence of an entire band. After that………well you’ll have to come and see for yourself.

I have a special story to tell about this event. This years Sacramento Jazz Festival was amazing. With more than 450 sets of live music! That’s 24 venues with about 70 bands, including a few dozen internationally-known all-stars. Jazz fans were dancing in the streets! It was one giant party as the sounds of jazz, blues, zydeco (and related styles) permeated Old Sac, Midtown, and the Sacramento Convention Center.

My old band Black Cat Bone had 3 gigs scheduled for the week long extravaganza. We were stationed on the outskirts of Old Sac in a comedy club called The Laughs Unlimited. With all doors and windows opened in the club and the 100 year old wood floor and walls giving our acoustics a warm welcome, we played.  People stopped in the middle of the street as they walked by, instinctively drawn to the soothing sound of electric blues like a cool drink of water. All they had heard throughout the day were jazz bands and big band horns stacked up row after row. The simple beat and blue tones of a four piece blues band hooked them in like Alaskan Salmon in July. It was easy!

There was one particular song we played on the night of our 3rd gig at the comedy club. It was slow blues in the key of G called Sweet Little Angel. I love this song. It has a tempo and simple bass line that is so thick you can solo nearly any scale of notes and still not deviate from the harmony. In short, I felt that I couldn’t play a wrong note. I noticed as we were coming up to it in the set list that the club had grown from 30 to about 50 people and every seat in the house was taken. They were all facing us and no one was talking.

The drummer cracked her sticks to count off. The bass dropped the low, the guitar hit the high and I came in with one of the sweetest down scale riffs I had ever played. We were on. Little did I know that this was actually going to be the one song I would remember throughout the entire Jazz Festival. Between our three,  4 hour gigs, and the 125 songs we played that week, this one would be the best. The only thing I can tell you about what I played in my solo of that song is this. I took it slow.  I heard every note before it had been blown, and every note came out better than expected. When my solo ended I felt great. I felt the kind of satisfaction you feel when you fix a broken motor and it fires back up to live again. I felt like there was nothing in the room more important than the novel I just read to these people about my life. Everything I had to offer this world was in that solo.

And then came the very unexpected, every single person in the bar put their hands together. I got whistles and yells and “woohoos” from every angle …………………that had never happened. Now I have gotten the enthusiastic group of people to applaud and sometimes large sections of a venue. Not like this. Never the entire bar. Never had anyone stood out their chair to show me their appreciation making sure that I acknowledged them back before sitting down. Not until then. Not until I played a song called Sweet Little Angel at the 2010 Sacramento Jazz Festival.

Thanks for reading.

Friday July 23^rd

The Bastards of Young show was off the hook. Earlier in the evening I assembled the F# harmonica that I had used when we recorded their hit song Earthquake Weather. It’s a custom hohner marine band with special 20 cover plates made for me by Randy Sandoval at Genesis Harmonicas. AKA – Freaky Francine. Yes, all of my harmonicas have women’s names.

I rolled out to the show at 8pm, destination – Luigi’s Fun Garden. Luigi’s is pizza shop in midtown Sacramento that seems to be a popular pickup joint for the local gay scene after dark. The parlor shares a wall with an equally sized room to the right where they host local bands.

Immediately upon arrival I realized that the punk band scene is considerably younger than I am………considerably younger.  Nevertheless I was itching for the band to ask me on stage with them. I haven’t really whaled in front of a crowd since my last gig with Black Cat Bone and the local church gigs I’ve been playing don’t quite scratch hard enough.

Sure enough they asked me up with them for Earthquake Weather as the final song, and pretty we brought the house down. What a Rush! When your still on stage and the crowd is holding out their hands for high fives from down below, it’s a really good feeling. I walked away that night with a full size LP of the album, a cassette tape, a tee shirt and a great memory.

My final thoughts of the evening are this:

Even though I only played a twelve second solo on one song from their album, Bastards of Young has given me a tangible album that I can be proud of. After the crappy home recording that I’ve done with so many other bands, it feels really good to be a part of something that is legit.

The other day I was asked to be a part of a an event called “Come Alive”. Its put on by Roby B. he is the worship leader from the Folsom Community Bible Church. His vision came from a very basic question: if all Christians are supposed to be one body of Christ, why aren’t they? Why doesn’t any one know whats going on at any of the other local Sacramento churches that are right down the street? So Roby created “Come Alive”. Picking out musicians from various local churches, myself included, we bring together all the local bodies of Christ under one roof and have an evening of worship. I think its a great idea and the music we have for this Sunday night is going to be a lot of fun to play. I have attached a poster to the event, hope you all can make it out. All ages are welcome and I also hope to have some video footage to post later.

July 1^st 2010

Two years ago I picked up long distance running as a way to quick smoking. I was smoking a pack a day and getting worse by the month. Getting up and running every morning was a way to keep my mind off the cravings. I started at one mile per day. At the time I had just joined the band Black Cat Bone and was gigging about twice a month.

I set my eyes on the California International Marathon as a solid goal to train for over the next six months. Training daily quickly increased my weekend runs to 5-10-15 miles. Realizing that there is a lot of time to psych yourself out as you put one grueling step in front of the other, I regularly distracted myself by mentally running harmonica scales and licks through my head. Those thoughts worked surprisingly well to improve my speed in running scales when I got back to having my harmonica in hand.

So the first thing that running did for me was it gave me time to practice my repetitions in my head. Not just scales, I played licks, I wrote songs, I conjured up lyrics and all the while I was running without a harmonica. Just the thought process and day dreams of doing it.

The second thing that running did for my playing is it has gave me an unbreakable rhythm. I am a White Boy! I do believe that I have a little more soul than 90% of while folks out there, but there is always room for improvement. The rhythm of running is something that taps into your heart. Not heart like soul, but your actual blood pumping organ. Your steps become directly tied to the beat of every pump your heart makes. You begin to demand that rhythm. I’ll be one to say, that on mile number 20, your rhythm and that faint song in the back of your mind that has kept you going over the last 8 miles, may be the only thing you have left to hang on to as you reach your finish line.

I firmly believe that “Long distance running helps establish solid rhythm, and solid rhythm is a necessity to being a good musician.” Somebody write that down.

Lastly………Wind! A month ago I played 7 blues shows in a 7 day period. Each show was 4 hours long. So when you are huffin and puffin on that bullet microphone in the 4^th hour of a show and you want to kick your eighth notes into sixteenth notes or thirtysecond notes on the peak of your solo, you need to have lungs and a diaphragm that are conditioned to take you there.

Running has greatly improved my quality of life mentally and physically. Playing the harmonica has also helped me in same ways and I feel that they compliment each other very very well.

By the way its been one year and 359 days since my last cigarette. Still running.

6/18/10 – It’s my first night in Half moon bay and the scenery is unreal. There are weeping willow trees here that I’ve never seen before. The cabin we are staying in is like a New York loft that has been dropped on to a lonely cliff side. The view is surreal.

I am currently working on a freelance project with Scott Evans to create our first musical album. There is a photographer by the name of Stacey A. Morris who lives in Florida. She has an outstanding collection of photos that we are reviewing to inspire us. Her pictures are actually going to be the third party in this collaboration of ideas and artistic fusion.

I came here for the purpose of spending two days in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains to create music that related to photography. Not an every day task. Scott and I decided to use 12 pieces of art work from this photographer in order to inspire with writings of 12 songs. A song for each of the 12 diatonic keys, each song will tell it own story. An interpretation of a single picture taken by a woman who lives on the other side of the country. Moreover we’ve never met her nor we may never. I’d like to, God willing.

I am proud to say, this is by far the most artistic event to which I’ve ever be involved.

Skype Harmonica Lessons. For quite some time now I have wanted to teach lessons via Skype.  The idea that neither I nor that student needs to leave the comfort of our own home and can still have 75% the quality of an in person lesson, makes it very worth while.

Lets face it Skype breaks down the area barrier completely. If a student in California wants to take lessons from a guy in Texas because he thinks that the lesson will be better taught, I am all about it.

I do also get to save people some money on the lessons that I teach over skype because I do realize that the quality is limited. Anyhow look at my Private Lessons Page for more information on this. Thank you!